"Hey, have you heard the news?" Jeonguk asks, waving his report card before me.

My heart swells with pride when I notice just how many A's and B's there are.

"Jin says we're all going on vacation to celebrate my 'miraculous' recovery," he continues, beaming brightly. "He was sure I was going to fail."

"Jeonguk," I tell him, rustling his hair affectionately and snickering not so silently, "we were all pretty sure you were going to fail. Hell, I think Jimin was actually excited about it. Said it's high time that the mighty Jeon Jeonguk failed at something."

I laugh, sticking my tongue out as Jeonguk swipes for me with a manufactured look of offense plastered upon his face.

"I'm gonna get you for that noona!" he yells.

I stop running, turning around to stick my tongue out at him once more, only to have him barrel right into me and knock me straight to the floor.

"Told you I was gonna get you," he says smugly, sitting upon me as if I were the most comfortable couch in the world.

"Guk," I wheeze, "you're heavy... Get off!"

"Maybe you should suffer a little more, maybe I'm not satisfied yet." he replies mockingly. "You know what to say noona!"

I groan, quickly coming to regret egging Jeonguk on.

"Jeonguk!" Jin yells, descending the stair case with alarming speed and a rolling suitcase. "Are you all packed?"

He touches down upon the stairs landing, and turns to find the situation in which I have found myself. He blinks once, twice, a whopping three times, and then simply turns around and bounds back up the stairs luggage still in hand.

Jeonguk looks down and realizes himself the situation that Jin probably thought he walked into and freezes, turning cherry red above me.

"Jeonguk," I groan. "So heavy..."

I'm pretty sure by this point I can actually see that tunnel of light, you know, the one everyone always says not to go into in movies? I could have sworn up and down that it wasn't a real thing, and yet, there it is.

I can hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the background, and the sounds of shuffling feet, but it all seems almost as if I were underwater. From the hallway directly before my head the sound of footsteps becomes louder, and so I tilt my head back to see what's going on.

White lights erupt behind my lids just as Jimin emerges with a handsome stranger following closely behind.

"Jeonguk!" Jimin shouts, voice garbled and distorted to my oxygen deprived brain. "Get off! She's turning blue!"

Jeonguk scrambles off of me in record time, mumbling apologies endlessly as he attempts to help me up. But my body is now jello, and I am only just rediscovering this precious thing called air.

I'm just not ready.

"Just leave me, " I wheeze. "I'll get up on my own."

Jeonguk simply shrugs, walking away in accordance to my wishes. But Jimin is always a little trickier to get rid of.

"Are you okay?" He asks, reaching out with an open hand to help me up.

The stranger behind him observes in silence, body rigid as if he were angry or uncomfortable. It's impossible to read his face and determine which, since his face is hidden by a mask and a baseball cap.

What I do know is that he stares at Jeonguk's retreating figure awfully intense-like as the boy bounds up the stairs two at a time.

I take Jimin's hand and he makes short work of lifting me back onto my feet.

"I'll be fine," I croak, steadying myself and letting go of his proffered hand. "Just need to catch my breath."

"Are you already all packed?" He asks, watching me closely as he awaits my reply.

I shake my head.

"No," I answer. "I didn't know we were going anywhere. How did everyone else find out so quickly anyway?"

Jimin scratches the back of his head awkwardly before offering a dismissive shrug.

"I have no idea how you didn't hear about it," he tells me. "I heard about it from Namjoon weeks ago. Invited Hobi along too."

He gestures to the stranger and I immediately bristle.

I can't seem to stop myself from blushing, much to my utter mortification, as I realize that earlier it was Hoseok I'd called handsome. He stands idly behind Jimin still, smiling at me innocently.

"I'm not going." I intone seriously. "Have fun."

"Oh no," Jimin says. "You're definitely going."

"Oh no, I'm definitely not."

"Jin!" Jimin yells, ignoring the way both Hoseok and I wince at the sudden shift in volume. "Avelyn's trying to refuse to go!"

Jimin smirks at me, and then, he does this little... Victory wiggle? I really don't know how else to describe it. Whatever it is, it has both Hoseok and I amused.

Hoseok outright laughs, and I'd be lying if I say that I'm not smiling. But, unfortunately for Jimin, I have no intention of going anywhere. And after Jin collaborated with Jimin to trap me in the dining room with Hoseok, I really couldn't care less if he commands me to go.

All of us have some set rule or another, and for the most part we all try to be pretty good about respecting them.

For Yoongi, his room is private and off limits. Jin demands that each of us share the chores evenly. Once a week, his girlfriend comes over, and for that period of time we all kind of scatter. It's not that she isn't nice, or even that Jin has particularly asked for it. He just spends so much time taking care of us, that we all figured alone time with his girlfriend would be preferable to having us about to muck up the mood.

Namjoon doesn't like others touching his things. His room is pretty much the standard definition of chaos. I think it probably reflects his brilliant mind, because no matter how messy it gets in there, he doesn't seem to have a problem finding anything.

At least, not unless someone else comes and cleans his room. I hear rumors about the one and only time Jin ever did such a thing, and from all accounts, the poor braniac hadn't been able to find anything for weeks.

Jeonguk is, for the most part, simple and fairly easy to please. As far as I can tell, the only thing he hates is being babied.

Jimin is another story entirely.

Learning to live with Jimin's insecurities had been like a live action game of mine-sweeper for a little while. Luckily, the lot of us kept calm, and patient. Eventually we all were able to determine all the ways in which Jimin had been hurting.

And little by little, I'd like to think that we've helped him overcome at least some of those insecurities.

As for me, well. Up until this point I haven't really had any such cares. Frankly, I'm almost always gone anyway. I'm rarely ever home. Most of the time, I come home simply to bathe, pass out, and then do it all again.

But I finally seem to have found something to put my foot down about. And I have half a mind to do so. But Jin's voice, reverberating through the walls and down the stairs, tells me that I had best give up that notion real quick.

"Well she's coming, like it or not!" He hollers. "Otherwise I'll tell Yoongi that she was the one who washed his Kumamon plushie!"

I grimace, realizing I'm not left with much of a choice.

In my defense, the thing clearly had never been washed, and was in dire need of it. How was I supposed to know one of it's eyes would pop off? Yoongi will surely kill me if he finds out, and I sigh in resignation.

"Fine, " I tell Jimin angrily. "You win. I'll be packed in five minutes."

And as I turn and drag myself up the stairs, adding extra mope to my demeanor just for Jimin's benefit, the little shit smiles.